Bloomberg

Bloomberg | Quint is a multiplatform, Indian business and financial news company. We combine Bloomberg’s global leadership in business and financial news and data, with Quintillion Media’s deep expertise in the Indian market and digital news delivery, to provide high quality business news, insights and trends for India’s sophisticated audiences.

NBC Chief Hints That Company May Unveil Netflix-Style Service

(Bloomberg) -- NBC Universal’s boss sent a holiday greeting to employees this week, and it contained an intriguing hint about the coming year.

Steve Burke, head of the Comcast Corp. division, suggested that the company might unveil an online TV service in 2019 -- though it’s hard to know how seriously to take a message written in the rhyming style of Dr. Seuss.

“While you all go off to relax, swim or ski,” Burke wrote. “Maybe, just maybe, next year we will announce our plan for OTT.”

The initials are a reference to “over-the-top” services that provide video content to customers via the internet rather than a traditional satellite or cable TV subscription.

Burke, who oversees the NBC network, cable channels such as USA, and the Universal theme parks and movie studio, has yet to announce a streaming product like those planned by rivals Walt Disney Co. and AT&T Inc.’s Warner Media next year. But Comcast is getting such a service through its acquisition of Sky Plc.

The whole industry is rushing to compete with Netflix Inc., which continues to amass subscribers and programming for its dominant streaming platform.

In his holiday note, Burke also lamented that Comcast lost out to Disney in a bidding war for 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets.

“During 2018 our businesses mostly rocked,” he said. “But it did not feel at all good when Disney got Fox.”

The executive noted the disappointing performance of the Dwayne Johnson film “Skyscraper,” while praising hits such as “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” the NBC show “New Amsterdam” and results at the Spanish-language network Telemundo.

“Even though ‘Skyscraper’ did not quite deliver, we come back next year with ‘Pets 2’ in our quiver,” he said.